


In which Gil indulges a bad habit

by Overlord_Bethany



Series: blundering onward [11]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Multi, OT3, Post-Canon, also a fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: He probably shouldn't do that.





	In which Gil indulges a bad habit

Gil had taken to feigning sleep. He knew better, knew he should try for honesty, at least with Agatha. Still, he enjoyed his small deception. He liked the way Agatha and Tarvek would curl against his sides, their hands on his skin, sometimes moving in soft, absent caresses. He loved their drowsy conversations, murmured across him. This was quite possibly his favorite vice. 

Tonight Tarvek’s hand played in Gil’s hair while he told Agatha an old fairy tale. Sleep thickened his voice, and sometimes he paused or repeated himself, but Gil listened intently. He had never heard this version before. Equally fascinated, Agatha had tucked her head against Gil’s cheek, and her hand rested flat on his chest. 

“One day, Принцеса—the princess, she decided that a troll should not live in a castle tower. She packed a few things, and she set out for a more suitable place. A cave, perhaps, or a high mountain, or the deep shadows beneath a bridge, where she might surprise unwary travelers and bring them to their doom.”

In the version of the tale Gil knew, an evil wizard had abducted the princess and taught her to behave like a troll. In Tarvek’s story, it was the girl’s own parents. He thought of the implications of what he heard, and he focused on keeping his breathing steady. 

“No guards awaited her outside her door…” Tarvek scratched his fingernails lightly over Gil’s scalp as he searched his memory for what came next. Gil bit the inside of his cheek to stop a sigh of pleasure. “Many, many stairs led down from her tower. On her way down, she met a knight who thought to be her suitor. He asked her to come away with him. She bit him, as a troll should. Cursing in shock and dismay, the knight fled.”

“I like this princess,” Agatha said, and Tarvek chuckled. 

“No one guarded the doors to the keep, and no one stopped her at the gate. Shouldering her belongings, she descended to the village below.”

Tarvek fell silent again. Gil wondered if this Princess Troll would terrorize the villagers, as the wizard in his version had taught her to do. Agatha had tensed beside him, possibly wondering the same thing. 

“The villagers greeted her warmly,” Tarvek said. “They knew the likeness of their princess. They had seen art of her from a young age. ‘Fear me!’ the princess objected. 'I am a terrible troll!’ Now, no one agreed with her, not really, but who were they to argue with their beloved princess? 'Indeed, yes, so you are,’ said villager after villager. They threw bread and other supplies at her as they drove her out of town, and she did not understand their generosity.”

Agatha sighed across Gil’s ear. He suppressed a shiver, but only just. Tarvek pressed closer, testing his resolve further. 

“In every town the princess came to, she announced what she had always been told, that she was a terrifying troll. The townspeople always agreed. Eventually, she came upon a bridge she thought suitable for so terrible a beast. She settled herself beneath it, and she found the ground cold and uncomfortable.” 

Tarvek’s voice had grown surer and his accent lighter—a damn shame, that—so Gil supposed he had shaken off his drowsiness. Agatha’s fingers curled in anticipation, her fingernails raking Gil’s skin, raising goosebumps all over his body. 

“When travelers happened by, the princess leapt out to frighten them. A few ran away. One boy wanted to fight her, until she tried to bite, and then he too fled. Then, one morning, two women came upon her bridge.”

“Women?” Agatha lifted her head a little. Gil thought of the versions of the story he had heard. A knight sometimes vanquished the princess, or perhaps a creature of terrible power subdued her. 

“Two women,” Tarvek repeated. “They stepped onto the bridge, and the princess lunged out at them. She growled her most fearsome growl, she bared her teeth and she brandished her fingernails as claws. The two women stared at her, utterly impassive until she quieted. They further baffled her by introducing themselves.

”'I am a troll,’ the princess said, and the two women nodded.

“'So were we,’ one of them told her. 'That’s what they told us, but they did not actually know. So we became something better.’ Intrigued, the princess told them that she would permit them to pass, if only they tell her what else a troll might become. The strange women both smiled knowing smiles.”

Tarvek’s hand had stilled in Gil’s hair. He paused for dramatic effect, as though the lonely princess in his tale had carried out the reign of terror other versions described. Was Agatha holding her breath?

“'Come with us, and we will show you.’”

Huh. Was that how one vanquished a troll girl who was not really a troll?

“The princess followed to two women to their cottage in the woods, where she studied hard and she also learned to be a witch. She learned how to make people fear her true power, and when to wield it. She learned well, and years later, she took the other two witches with her and she returned to her childhood home, her parents’ castle. They conquered the kingdom in a single night. On the day of her coronation, the new queen sat upon her throne, and she vowed that for so long as she reigned, never again would a young girl be a troll.”

“Good for her!” Agatha said. “I’ve never heard a version where the Troll Girl wins.” She poked Gil in the chest. “What do you think?”

Gil grunted as though drowsy. Immediately, Tarvek pinched his earlobe and gave it a tug. “Don’t bother lying. You were listening.”

Gil sighed. When had he lost the ability to deceive Tarvek? “I thought someone usually defeated her in battle,” he said. 

“No, she returns to claim her birthright in the older tales.”

“I expect you’ve researched the topic extensively,” Gil said. How many fairy tales had Tarvek cross referenced? Probably all of them. 

“It’s surprisingly useful knowledge.”

Agatha reached across Gil to tickle Tarvek. How had they come to this? How had the three of them grown so comfortable with one another that he thought nothing of Tarvek flinching and wriggling right against him?

“Hey.” Tarvek caught Agatha by the wrist, and she fought to continue her assault. “Gil. What’s wrong?”

Immediately, Agatha fell back beside him. “You’re too quiet,” she said. 

Wrong? No, nothing was wrong. 

“I’m the right amount of quiet to listen to the two of you,” Gil objected. He fought a sudden sick feeling, a wave of doubt. He could not have ruined anything just by keeping quiet and listening. 

And yet, he wondered if he had. 

Fumbling for words to cover the anxious twirling of his thoughts, Gil said, “Do you like that version of the Princess Troll story because the girl overcomes her terrible family?” 

Tarvek fell back on the bed beside him, and Gil gnawed the words in his mind. Why had he said that? Insensitive, wasn’t it? Agatha’s knuckle dug into his ribs, far from Tarvek, far from the consequences of his careless words. Fair enough. 

Tarvek sighed a long, bone-weary sigh. “It’s pointless to ask you not to ask me…” His voice trailed off, but before Gil could reply, he drew a deep breath, and he said, “I like the witches. I like that when she encounters empathy for the first time, the Princess grows stronger than she had ever imagined she could be.”

Stunned by his words, Gil lay still, staring into the darkness, feeling nothing but shame. Why could he never express what he felt so eloquently as Tarvek did? So envy, also. Shame and envy. 

Agatha climbed across Gil and dropped down on the other side of Tarvek. She murmured something he could almost hear, and Tarvek turned his back toward Gil. Biting back the sting of that simple motion, Gil edged closer to him. He let his fingertips trail along Tarvek’s spine, and he tried to tell himself that Tarvek’s faint shudder indicated pleasure rather than pain. How could he know without asking? How could he ask?

“Gil.” Seizing him by the wrist, Agatha yanked his arm around Tarvek’s waist. Tension melted from Tarvek’s shoulders, and Gil let his forehead rest there. 

“Oh, um…” He hadn’t made a mess of things?

“Hush,” Tarvek said, humor in his voice. “Idiot.” 

Agatha pinched him. “That’s not helpful, either.”

“Of course it is,” Tarvek argued. “If I don’t tell him he’s an idiot, how will he know?”

Oh, he knew already. Despite himself, Gil smiled.


End file.
